Keep It Simple - Leaving your mark on history

March 21, 2005

Mike Jones

For more than 13 years I have compiled the "Step Back in Time" feature, a semi-regular, informal look back at the history of Otsego County as seen through the eyes of those who actually lived, worked, had their first crush, fell in love, raised families, raised a little hell, made friends, made time for others, got sick and eventually died - all within the geographical boundaries of the county.

From what I have observed while attempting to sort through the local histories of places like Gaylord, Elmira, Vanderbilt, Johannesburg, Waters, and all of those places which exist now in name only - Hallock, Logan, Berryville and Timbuktu (actually I made that last one up) - is that not much in the way of any great historical significance has ever taken place here.

Face it, compared to the rest of the world, we never exactly rated regular news segments on network news, CNN, or talk radio.

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Yes, the Arthur Compton family (think atomic bomb) had a summer home on the west side of Otsego Lake and Claude Shannon (think early telecommunication technology and the information age) spent his childhood years in Gaylord in the 1920s and 1930s.

There was the time the "Otsegos" baseball team (think Ty Cobb) played against the Detroit Tigers, and the time a group of early Gaylord tricksters figured out a way to move the county seat from Otsego Lake to Gaylord (think bogus voters and other local intrigues).

To the best of my knowledge, though, no local events have ever made their way into a chapter of a United States history textbook. No startling Hollywood entertainment-like exposes have featured the folks of the little burg of Sparr. And, I have never heard of a local businessperson involved in financial scandal the magnitude of those involving CEOs of large multinational companies.

Pretty ho-hum stuff happening here compared to the likes of standoffs at Tieanman Square or the silly drama of the 2000 presidential election.

One hundred years from now, myself, my peers and all of those who came before us, who carved out a niche, no matter how small, in Otsego County, will be but a fleeting footnote in the history of human civilization. And that, I contend, ain't all that bad or big a deal.

Much like the philosophy of those crazy Zen hermit-type guys, we understand this about ourselves - we come and we go, we exist and we don't exist, we live and we don't live - with everything in-between making up what we call our individual life histories.

The best we might hope for locally - if we care about such things - might be to have a county road named after us (think slim chance though as the Theisens, Nowaks, Cherwinskis Kassubas, etc. of the county have already laid claim to all of the road names.)

Or maybe we might have a building named after us, with our ego (name) lit up with bright lights for all to see (again think slim chance. Think McDonalds, Lowes, Kohls, Wendys, etc. as the only kind of buildings we'll ever see with someone's name tacked up above the door.)

And so I finish with a few simple words from a simple hermit monk known by some as the "great fool" - "How can we ever lose interest in life?/ Spring has come again/ And cherry trees bloom in the mountains." - Ryokan